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Professor Wonders If Pollack’s
Interviews Are ‘Fiction’

January 2001

Professor Howard Schwartz, Oakland University, says that he wonders, in his book to be published next spring, about Dr. Pollack’s alleged “interviews” with boys.

Prof. Schwartz writes, “In his ‘Author’s Note’ [to his book], Pollack acknowledges altering ‘names, places, and other details’ in the materials he uses and says that the stories and ‘voices’ are ‘derived from’ his clinical experience and research. Of course, it is impossible for me to say how closely his text resembles the actual conversations from which they were ‘derived.’

“It may be worthwhile, however, to note that his disclaimer: ‘… any similarity between the …stories of individuals described in this book and those of individuals known to readers is inadvertent and purely coincidental’ is of the sort one usually associates with works of fiction.

“The only question is how much of his interviews Pollack made up. I suspect it was a lot, since all of his subjects sound exactly the same and say things that fit his theories so perfectly that it is hard to believe they were not concocted for the purpose. If the matter comes to trial, you might want to ask him.

“It appears that Pollack believes he has the freedom, not just to say what he wants, but to have other people interpret what he says in the way that he wants. Of course he has the first freedom, but if he has the second freedom it means that all of the rest of us have lost our own.”

The name of Prof. Schwartz’ book is The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness, due out this spring from Praeger.